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Spotify is working on the release of a $100 voice-controlled in-car music player this year, The Financial Times says, marking its first foray into hardware. FT says the company has been working with electronics manufacturer Flex to build out the device which would come cheaper than most brand-name car stereo systems if a $100 price stands firm.

Rumors of hardware ambitions for Spotify first emerged June last year after the company registered with the Federal Communications Commission, a move towards getting approval to sell wireless hardware in the U.S. Spotify also introduced a new "car view" mode for its Android app just this week, signalling a focus on the automotive market.

A recent survey from voice tech publication Voicebot.ai indicate that some 77 million U.S. adults use voice assistants in their cars, compared with 45.7 million using them on smart speakers. Cars are arguably a best use for voice technology as drivers might prefer voice control rather than touchscree…

image credit : Pony.ai Chinese self-driving startup Pony.ai which was founded with the mission of building safe and better reliable autonomous vehicle technology and is noteworthy for its self driving platform which powers China's fully first self driving vehicle fleet has now raised a new round of funding totaling $102 million co-led by ClearVue Partners, Fidelity's VC arm Eight Road and saw participation from several others including Hong Kong businessman Adrian Cheng, Sequioa Capital, Delong Capital, Redpoint Ventures China amongst other firms who contributed to this funding round.

This investment brings the total sum raised by Pony.ai to $214 million after having raised $112 million January this year in a round led by Morningside and Legend Capital for the just 17 month old startup.

This investment round also choots Pony.ai into the huge valuation group as the company states that this funding round gives it close to a $1 Billion post-money valuation.

Since its first funding round early this year, Pony has tripled in size and also recently secured a license for autonomous vehicle testing in the city of Beijing which represents quite a very good record for the roughly 2 year old startup.

Pony is also very notable for being founded by the duo of James Peng who was the former Chief Architect at major Chinese technology company Baidu who also stands as a main player in China's self driving space and also Tiancheng Lou who previously was a team member at Google X's autonomous car project which later became Waymo and stands as the current global leader in the self-driving space.

This investment is an addition to the vast number of investments which have been made in the automous vehicle industry as several companies race to grasp the rapidly growing market which stands as the major future of transportation and is predicted to dominate the transportation sector by the year 2030.

The self driving technology industry has seen so many companies backed by huge capital come out to play a major role in the market which includes Zoox which has raised $290 million in total having become a major startup for Tesla incubated employees whilst being valued at a huge $1.55 Billion in addition to LiDar maker Quanergy Systems and Cruise which got a $2.25 Billion investment commitment from Softbank late this year.

Pony.ai launched a taxi service 7 months ago in the Chinese region which has so far delivered over 1,000 autonomous rides in the region with Pony aiming to expand this service along with its partnerships, testing and hiring of much needed talent with this investment.

James Peng, Pony's co-founder and CEO issued a statement on this investment saying James Peng. “I truly believe the next major challenge for autonomous cars will be small and medium scale deployment—this is an absolutely critical step to validating the system’s overall stability and reliability. We are grateful for the new and continued support in helping us to achieve this future.”

With vast capital and major development milestones, We would now get to see how Pony would fare in the rapidly growing and interesting autonomous vehicle market counting the likes of Chinese tech companies Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent as other notable players along with the major likes of Waymo, Uber, Tesla, Zoox, Cruise, Ford and other major automobile companies.

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